


Where Do You Go When You Go Quiet?

by edwick96



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Reunion Sex, Reunions, Unresolved Sexual Tension, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 06:39:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14158986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edwick96/pseuds/edwick96
Summary: With a looming threat hanging over the galaxy and a broken heart Tony's Starks life isn't going that great.Enter a missing ex Avenger/ Captain to tug at a thread tony had convinced himself he'd sewn up tight.





	Where Do You Go When You Go Quiet?

**Author's Note:**

> Slapped together using the Infinity War trailers as guides. I get the sickening feeling we'll be left hanging regarding any Stony interactions so I wanted a preface.
> 
> (and beyonce motifs because that's my M/O)

 

**_So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you've killed me? Here lies the body of the love of my life, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head._ **

 

_The tunnel back home closes behind him, like it always does. His HUD alight with blinking reds and the blue lasers from the ever approaching Chitauri firing in every direction. The crushing weight of the nuke slipped through his fingers, on it’s way to the mother ship, so Tony turns of his boosters, let’s all his muscles relax, dead inside the heavy suit, and falls, closing his eyes as he plummets down. He hears ragged breathing, assuming it’s his own, and opens his eyes again._

_He’s not falling anymore. Its cold, and the snow is cutting into his freshly beat up face. A human shaped blur hangs over him. Where they trying to wake him up? He sees two blue eyes, they looked sort of familiar. Usually they were fonder in a way that always made Tony’s throat dry up and his chest ache. Now they where dark as storm, two deadly oceans, rough enough to send ships flying._

_It was Steve looming over him, face contorted in anger, directed at Tony. It was Steve breathing raggedly, saliva dripping from his snarled teeth._

_“I’m sorry Tony,” phantom Steve said, in a way that sounded like he might have been taunting him, “but he’s my friend.”_

_Tony coughed, “So was I. I thought we meant more to each other than this. Could have been more,” they’d been so close…_

_Then Tony watches in horror as Steve lifts his arms over his head, his shield in his hands. There where a few agonising moments that seemed to stretch on forever, before Steve brought the shield down on his face like a guillotine._

He startled awake, back sore, as he realised he was slumped over his workbench with a soldering iron in one hand pointed directly at his face. He jumped, throwing it across the room. He wondered dully why no one had come down to get him for dinner or something, then he remembered there was no one here to do that for him anymore.

Right now Tony Stark had never felt lower or lonelier. He ate and slept exclusively in his workshop, bathed once in a blue moon and went to the occasional business meeting or press conference.

There hadn’t been any unstoppable forces of evil attempting to swallow the world whole so he was rarely needed in the field as a spare for the new Avengers either. He worked with them like a coach would a sports team, running the plays and adding new members. The Spiderling had been his most interesting acquisition. The boy showed tremendous potential as a hero, and since the whole Vulture fiasco he’d managed to stay inside his lane, fighting bank robbers in queens, until Tony called on him next.

Spider Boy couldn’t be considered a friend; he was much too young and full of hope to party with Tony’s crowd. He was a mentee, a pupil, an aid, he was not at all the son Tony never had, thank you very much Pepper.

She’d looked at him funny as the kid left Avengers compound one day;

_“We can’t adopt him Tony he has an aunt,” she’d said with a smirk and made Tony want to blast a robot in the face with his repulsors._

_“I don’t want to adopt him, I want to…. Mould him.”_

_“Mould him? As in mould him in your image?”_

_“Oh good god, no,” Tony said a little too quickly, earning a sad smile from Pepper._

_“That boy couldn’t have a better man to teach him than you, Tony Stark,” and she’d kissed him on the cheek as if that wasn’t the most heart wrenching thing to be said by anyone ever._

There were those who stuck by him over the accords, scattered but still in contact. Vision and the Spiderling were frequent residents of the new Avengers compound. Natasha showed up sometimes.

T’Challa, the foreign king who had come to his aid had returned to his native country with the promise of assistance if the need ever came up, but a foreign ally wasn’t a friend.

Steven Strange was an odd new addition to the super world. Tony refused to believe in magic, ever, and no one could ever begrudge him of his utter dismissal of the mystic arts as he had been a man of science all of his life. But apart from thinking he was a charlatan, Strange was good people; tack sharp with an ego that could go toe to toe with Tony’s any day. Strange, these days, had been preaching doom and gloom, a great cosmic event that could wipe out the universe. This reinforced Thor’s previous warnings of impending doom, about infinity stones and a puppet master, a threat from outer space.

Tony agreed with him on that point. He still woke up every morning, screaming awake after falling back through the portal above Manhattan. He knew what was possible and he was doing his best to prepare the best way he knew how, by building.

He’d been scrambling in the dark for his first prototype for a sort of alarm system, one that would sense any shifts in the ozone or space particles above, and tell the Avengers if something, like the chitauri or the infinity monster or whatever was coming.

Rhodey thought he’d reached new, mad scientist levels of crazy for this one.

_"Tone, this isn’t wires and circuitry, this is satellites and astrophysics,” Rhodey had warned._

_“I know Honeybuns I’ve been doing my readings,” Tony had said during the early days, when his alarm wasn’t anything but an empty shell with a makeshift TV satellite dish. “NASA has been doing some interesting research and I’ve been collaborating-“_

_“Stealing Tony, you’ve been stealing and engineering things behind their backs, you could get marshalled for this. It’s because you saved my life back at that airport that I’m not reporting your ass right now.”_

_“And honestly, Rhodey bear, that is so sweet of you really. I cherish you. But I’m not stealing, I’m simply following a recipe-“_

_“For high-tech satellite technology.”_

_“-And adding some of my own ingredients.” And it had been working._

_He was getting steady readings consistent with regular atmospheric pressure and movement. It was fun really, he considered taking up astrophysics as a hobby. Some of the more recent readings had started showing irregularities. Because he was a Stark raving genius the satelight was a lot stronger than he planned it to be and it was catching up on all sorts of weird things._

_“With this I could figure out if someone is trying to open up a portal, or if there are and unidentified vessels approaching from so far away it’d make Neil deGrasse Tyson cream his jeans.”_

_Rhodey blanched at the image, “Why don’t you just stick to the mountain of other things you’ve been wanting to build?”_

Rhodey had been right of course, there were many, many, many things Tony wanted to build, and because he had no one to talk to (not Rhodey’s fault, Tony knew he was busy working for Big Brother) , he had all the time in the world to build them. He didn’t even have someone like Pepper coming down to make him eat or sleep. It was great, no interruptions, he’d build until he passed out, drink some battery acid strength coffee and start again.

 

There was the MARK 37 bleeding edge armour. It was less a suit, like the others. It was nanotechnology so small and intricate for it to work it had to be inserted into the hollows of his vertebrae, and could then be commanded to emerge between skin cells into any form Tony chose. Tony was rarely surprised by his own genius, but he was especially proud of that project.

Then there was other morbid curiosity, the carbon copy engineering of JARVIS, an identical clone to his old friend, destroyed so brutally by Ultron. He was making great progress with this one, having advanced experience with creating AI. All his databases had been backed up and on file; he hadn’t lost anything so it was all there, ready to shove into a new AI slot.

However the hard part, and the only real reason Tony was doing this, was to recreate JARVIS personality and character. Tony missed the dry wit and his in and out knowledge of Tony that couldn’t be quantified on a hard drive. JARVIS cared. He had Tony’s back, he would always be his greatest creation. He wasn’t gone completely however. Vision was still around, and he still felt paternal fondness for his creator, so he was more than happy to help insert some of his memories into the AI, the important bits.

Last time Tony had only been a kid and had had to use the voice of his butler for referencing. Now he just had Vision come in and talk with him in the workshop every so often.

_“Do you think this is weird, creepy that I’m doing this? Creating a JARVIS Jr for the fun of it?”_

_Vision looked at Tony, and he knew he understood Tony’s real reasoning and respected it. “While you didn’t program me, or what I was, with emotion I do look back on our time together with a great fondness,” Vision said quietly, ”It would be an honour to help, in whatever small way I can in future._

_Tony nodded. Not good with emotions, he decided to ruin the moment._

_“How’s Wanda?” he said unaffected._

_He knew full well that they had reconnected since the fight, and he didn’t hold a grudge over Vision for it._

_Treating the Maximoff kid the way he did, like a weapon, a thing to be contained instead of a human being to be protected was Tony’s biggest regret. Her powers weren’t her fault, and he’d basically cornered her with the Accords. He wasn’t angry at her in the slightest. Even if his arm still stung from getting crushed by a fistful of minivans._

_Not missing a beat Vision smiled. “She is well. She has yet to use her powers again, and we have not seen Captain Rogers since the fight,” he said anticipating Tony’s next question._

_Tony nodded, not looking directly at him._

_“Tony I will not mince words. I feel my life; my short existence is in danger. Something is coming, something far greater than we have ever faced and I fear the powers I possess put me in direct danger._

_Tony’s eyes trailed to the gem in Visions forehead. Everyone and their uncle knew about the infinity stones by now, how great their powers where and who might do whatever they could to possess them all. Vision was a testament to that._

_“I’m working on it.”_

Tony emerged into a totally empty kitchen and looked around, still shocked and saddened every time he realised there weren’t many who lived here now, none of the old crew at least, bickering over cereal or cosmic cubes or whatever else.

When the avengers had started, and it was the six of them working for SHIELD, he could rarely spend more than a couple of days without someone pulling him away to play with them. Capsicle- no Steve. Steve Rogers. Captain Steven Rogers, criminal at large, had been particularly persistent in making sure he remained a functioning human being, who socialised or ate or bathed. It had been annoying and Tony totally didn’t miss it at all. He could invent and play without that concerned face or those blue eyes staring at him-

_“Tony when is the last time you ate?” Cap had brought down a tuna sandwich and a coke to Tony’s workshop and had very rudely turned off the blaring music filling the room._

_“You know that is so rude,” Tony wheeled himself from under the hot rod he was working on after taking a break from suit alterations, and staring down at him is  
Steve, the lights above surrounding him like a halo. _

_“What’s rude is when we offer to cook you food, and you ditch us to roll around in filth down here.”_

_Tony looked down at himself, tank-top clinging to his stomach, grease covering nearly every inch of his tanned arms. He looked back up to see Steve staring, lightly wetting his lower lip._

_“If it would make you feel better you could roll around down here with me, we can get filthy together.”_

_Steve had gone as red as a beetroot, plopped the sandwich down for Tony, and bolted up the stairs._

Tony smacked himself in the head, catching himself thinking about his old teammates, not just Captain Steve Rodgers. It made him sick thinking about the times before the Accords, just another handful of bad dreams to add to the stack to wake him up of a night. All of their shared memories wiped away, and for what?

For Barnes, Tony thought with so much hatred it almost blinded him.

He gripped so tightly onto the empty coffee cup he was holding his knuckles went white, then slammed it into the sink, chunks of clay dusting the basin, blood and cuts erupting from his hands. He swore, wrapped an entire rolled of paper towel around his hand flicking the switch for the garbage disposal.

“Sir,” FRIDAY chirped in, “The garbage compactor is currently clogged up, and has been on your to do list for months, now might be the opportune time to go down to the chute and have a look.”

Tony swore to every Norse god he could remember the name of, grabbed the mop he used when he spilled coffee on the floor every morning, and headed for the back elevator that led to garbage dumpster with the chute above it.

He regretted his all his choices when the elevator opened and the chilled air his his bare arms and feet, not thinking to put anything on other than a customary pair of sweatpants and the tanktop he wore when he didn’t want to get grease all over his clothes.

He swore every time he stepped on gravel or a rock and readied his mop, holding it by the base, ready to jam it into the chute hoping that something clogged in there was holding everything up. This was the handyman’s version of turning a computer on and off again before he actually had to try something complicated.

Raising the broom up he had to stand on tiptoes to get a good shot at the garbage chute. Then a noise startled him, making him jump. He grabbed the side of the dumpster with his bad hand, which he hadn’t covered up very well, blanched at the pain, and twisted his ankle on the way to the ground where he landed on his ass.

The noise was coming around the corner, under the bridge that separated the wings of the compound. There was a figure there, a shadow that had startled as he’d fallen. Tony begged the intruder would startle and run then he could run inside for his suit and catch the bastard. Show him for making Tony look like a hot mess.

But the figure moved closer, Tony raisied his bad hand in defence, and swore loud when he realised he wasn’t wearing a glove with a repulsor on it.

When an increasingly familiar shadow finally stepped out of the shadows Tony’s mouth went dry and his eyes glazed over.

Steve was almost unrecognizable. His hair was wild and long, not his usual neat do (more to grab on to) sporting an impressive beard (would it burn if they kissed?) that made him look so much older, even tho Steve was technically like one hundred years old or whatever. Still, seeing Steve dressed up as Bear Grilles made Tony yearn for fresh-faced Captain Rogers, the only lines scaring his face were around his mouth after 60 years worth of smiling.

Rogers’ face turned to one of concern on looking at the pitiful sight that was Tony Stark, who was basically in his pajamas next to a dumpster. He looked at Tony’s hand, battered and still up in a defensive position, even as he stepped closer, and his face crumpled. The expression on Steve’s face was a mixture of hurt and worry which was not fucking okay in Tony’s book, considering the last time they were face to face he was getting the shit beaten out of him. A crummy message of apology on a cellphone wasn’t going to change how betrayed Tony felt.

Steve stepped forward, “Tony-“

“Back up! Back the fuck up Rogers I swear to god,” it was a threat, but it was essentially empty. What was Tony gonna do, hit Captain America in the face with a broom? “What are you doing here? Here to finish the job?” Tony’s voice cracked.

Steve huffed, starting to get the hint that Tony hadn’t actually forgotten their little civil war as much as Steve wished that were true.

“No Tony,” the military posture and body language seemed to have been sapped out of him in the last few years Tony noticed, “I wanted to see you.”

“Ha!” Tony barked so loudly Steve flinched. Good. “Come to ease your guilty conscience more like. Clearly the years of maudlin stressed you out enough that you’ve aged the seventy years you lost and you want your sexy back, well you can forget it. You should feel guilty. Til’ the day you die,” The last sentence was dripping with venom.

Steve’s jaw moved, like he was gritting his teeth, holding back a retort just like the good old days.

“I do Tony. And I will.” Tony could have almost believed him; Steve hadn’t forgotten the sad puppy dog shtick Tony had had a weakness for. “What I did to you…” he said, like the whole thing had been just to hurt him personally.

Sometimes that’s what it felt like to Tony too. That Steve had instigated all of this just to destroy him, and any hopes he had for them. Many hopes that he’d been too scared to grab at because Starks don’t do feelings, they don’t yearn.

“I didn’t have any other options… But I know how much it cost us, that look in your eyes before I… Well you know,” bashed my face in with a slab of vibranium Tony thought, but he was squirming a little inside knowing Steve remembered what his face had looked like. Like Tony had.

“I would do it all over in a heartbeat, save everyone. Save us,” what did THAT mean, “it wasn’t worth it. I’d sign the accords.” But that wasn’t it entirely was it, a flash of a metal arm and a red star flashed in Tony’s brain.

“I should have said something to you,” Steve took a step forward, Tony one back and suddenly they weren’t talking about the accords.

“Coulda shoulda woulda Rogers...” Tony went for a callous tone, but it came out devastated before he steeled up, “Anyway this was nice Rogers but now its time for you to go before I release the hounds.” Steve didn’t know Tony was currently the only Avenger on campus.

Steve kept moving forward, intent in his eyes, “I just came here to say my peace and check you… you were all safe before I head back to Wakanda.”

Wakanda? What the hell was he going there for, was that were he had been hiding all these years? Seemed a bit overdramatic to move to Africa. Tony knew where the place was, he wasn’t stupid like the government, he just couldn’t get surveillance in. All the legends were true he guessed.

Steve was shockingly close now, how did that happen? Tony could almost reach out, stretch his arm and grab hold of the other man. He didn’t know why he would. To shake him, throttle him to death maybe. Or maybe he just wanted Steve closer. To be in his space again like he used to be, so comfortably.

Suddenly the thought of Steve leaving for Wakanda made his gut twist. He was yearning again, walls crumbling, the ones only Steve had managed to break through before.

_They’d never been that close, he still remembered their meeting on the helicarrier, and how things hadn’t really gotten that much better from there. But after Ultron things changed. Tony, drowning in self-pity and guilt had hidden in the pits of his workshop avoiding the glares and hate from the other Avengers which weren’t actually there._

_It’d been stubborn, ‘never leave a man behind’ Steve who had visited Tony in his tech dungeon to talk to him._

_“Tony, what are you doing?”_

_“Some research,” Tony jabbed his fingers at pictures absently on his Starkpad, pointedly not looking Steve in the eye. There was this kid in Queens, Bug Boy or the Arachnoid kid or something that was garnering his interest. Plus, he didn’t like Steve enough yet to deign him worthy of his attention._

_Steve strode forward, snatching the tablet with just enough force so he didn’t break it._

_“Hey! What the f-“_

_“I mean why are you hiding in here, pitying yourself. I know you still feel guilty about Ultron-“_

_“It was my fault Steve-” Tony raised his voice at the same time Steve did so they where yelling at each other._

_“-But enough is enough we’ve all forgiven you, you don’t need to hide from us-“_

_“-People died because of me and we don’t know if Ultron is gone for good!”_

_“We miss you Tony!” Tony gulped. People didn’t miss him. They forgot about him and moved on, better for it. “We’re your team.”_

_“It was my fault,” Tony said weakly, almost whispering._

_“Please, come out and talk to us.” Tony made the mistake of looking up, locking directly onto Steve’s baby blues, pleading but firm, brows furrowed, lips downturned slightly. Tony noted absently he was growing some stubble, hair a little messy, very un-Cap like. Tony hadn’t really regarded Steve this closely before. He really was beautiful. It couldn’t have been anything the serum could have produced. It was all Steve. Not that mattered to Tony. At all. It was merely an observation. An admiration he might give a nice painting. He ignored the twisting in his gut that finally made him respond._

_“Okay.”_

_So he’d come out to see everyone and was unnerved by their happy smiles, old friends and new. The Maximoff kid was there, giving him a regarding look, and Steve’s friend Sam, frowning at him._

_But Natasha and Clint smiled at him, Natasha handing him a plate of eggs because apparently it was breakfast time. Thor and Bruce were missing still, riding the great space coaster._

_Rhodey, who had been down to the labs a hand full of times, strode forward and crushed him in a hug. Tony had huffed and spotted Steve smiling over his friends shoulder._

_It had spiralled from there. Steve started moving into Tony’s personal space, patting him on the shoulder in passing, or leaning close to him in briefings. Tony froze up and the scurried away like a startled bug every time but Steve had never seemed offended._

_Soon Tony started seeking him out, pretending to ask about schematics, or ordering Steve takeout when there was already a fridge full of it. Steve kept giving him these increasingly shy smiles, giving thanks and sitting with Tony for a while. Tony gradually started looking at the good captain closely more and more, his admiration slowly becoming an addiction._

_He wanted more Steve, all the time, and Steve wanted the same and then came the sexual tension and the flirting. There were a few close calls, where something might have finally happened but then the accords happed._

Now here they were standing next to a dumpster and Tony regreted all of it. But he also wanted to jump on Steve and kiss him until his beard left burns on Tony’s face.

Steve was close enough, his warmth radiating over Tony and there was this look in his eyes, glazed over a bit. He was looking at Tony’s lips. Tony swayed into him.

“Tony…”  
He imagined Steve taking that final step, mouths crashing together finally, hot and desperate. Tony’s hands would fly to Steve’s long hair; give an experimental pull, making Steve gasp.

Steve would lift him up, under the ass and carry him until he was holding Tony against the wall of the compound. Tony knew from experience wall sex was the best.

He also knew Steve’s uniform wouldn’t come off easy, but he wasn’t a quitter so while Steve busied himself putting his mouth all over Tony’s bare neck and shoulders Tony would scrabble to get all the straps undone until finally the top half would come down.

Maybe Steve had grown some chest hair along with the beard, and he’d move from the wall to mouth at it a bit, tongue licking against a nipple just to see how Steve would react. He’d bet Steve would be shameless, letting the noises fly, maybe Tony could finally get him to swear, and they wouldn’t have touched each others dicks yet.

When they finally did, Steve would slide his hands down Tony’s front, gloved hand grazing tanned skin until he finally made contact. He’d grab a good handful of Steve’s ass, give it a squeeze, Tony was definitely an ass man.

He’d been kind of pent up, when was the last time he’d had sex? So it wouldn’t take long for Steve to finish him off, cumming in his pants. Steve could lick his fingers clean, Tony would grind out through the after shocks, until Steve made a mess in his own uniform. They’d fall to the ground, puffing, finally holding each other the way he knew they had both always wanted to and-

“Wait,” Tony jumped back to reality, swallowing. They were a breath away from actually kissing, not just in Tony’s mind but he was an idiot cursed with an erratic mind. Synapses were connecting, drawing conclusions. “What are you going to Wakanda for?” the metal arm was flashing in his mind again.

Steve blinked, clearly having been thinking his own dirty thoughts. “What?” Comprehension finally dawning he looked away. Barnes. That’s where he’d been hiding him.

Tony stepped back, blood suddenly going cold. “You should go. You need to go.”

“What, Tony,” Steve looked angry, but Tony didn’t back down. They both knew. Steve’s jaw clenched and he nodded, and suddenly their eyes where both watering. “Fine.”

It took a lot of time, and a lot of effort, but they finally stepped away from each other, although it went against every fibre in Tony’s being. He clenched his fists, letting the pain of his injured hand distract him from the cavity that was forming in his chest, right where the arc reactor had been.

“I’m glad you’re okay Tony,” Steve backed away into the shadows, and Tony looked away nodding, afraid that if he opened his mouth he’d tell Steve to stay.  
He didn’t look back in his direction, turning back to the dumpster and picking up the broom, knuckles going white.

He stood there for a long while leaning against it until his hand went numb, eyes blurring, letting himself well up because hey, no one was here to look or care, looking at the spot where Steve had been standing.


End file.
